As congress has just passed round 2 of funding for small business owners, I thought now might be a great time to explore what options small businesses have to get through these times. The SBA is expected to reopen their portal tomorrow morning to process applications for the PPP loans. If you have not been in touch with your bank or commercial lender and are planning to apply, I highly recommend doing so ASAP. It is hard to estimate how long these funds will be available seeing how quickly round 1 went. The biggest variable here are the thousands of applications that were in process when the 1st round ran out of funding. So, there is a giant head start here on round 2 versus round 1.
The SBA has cleared up some of their guidelines to help avoid public companies and larger corporations from receiving these funds. While it appears that a lot of this is still being done on the honor basis, they have tidied up some of their questions to ensure that small business owners are receiving the funds, as initially intended. They have issued a statement for any company that has received funding can return the funds by May 7th to avoid any further issues if the SBA deems their loan to have been unnecessary. Many believe this clarification is aimed at larger companies; however, I would recommend all small business owners that have received funding to determine if your application was truly necessary to continue operations.
As part of this second wave of funding, they are also re-funding the EIDL program as well. It is still very hard to tell what to expect for anyone that has applied for that and the odds of applications being processed. It does look like the SBA is not accepting any more applications for the EIDL until they get through all of the current ones. Keep in mind that the EIDL grant was updated to a maximum of $1,000 per employee.
It’s All Good Business Owners! Stay positive, continue to be creative and innovative to serve your customers.
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